Texas Rangers President and CEO Nolan Ryan visited Amarillo on Wednesday as part of the Texas Rangers 2013 Winter Caravan that included pitching coach Mike Maddux, starting pitcher Matt Harrison, first baseman Mitch Moreland and radio announcer Eric Nadel for a dinner to support The Bridge Children’s Advocacy Center.

Ryan discussed a variety of topics that included his evaluation of the Rangers’ offseason moves, reports of outfielder Nelson Cruz’s possible use of performance-enhancing drugs and his expectations for the upcoming season.

■ Could you talk about how you feel about the offseason as you go into spring training?

“It has been an interesting offseason for us. Some of the things we tried to do, we weren’t able to get done. Some of the things we were able to do toward the end of the offseason that we didn’t anticipate, we felt were nice additions to the ballclub. We feel good about what’s been accomplished so far.”

■ Did you decide not to pay players such as Zack Greinke (who signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for six years at $147 million) so much because you are comfortable with the rotation already?

“We feel like we have a nice nucleus of young starters, and he would’ve been a nice complement to that group that we have. But we feel like when you look at our core starters, we feel very comfortable with their ability, their durability, their age. We think that’s one of our strengths. But as we saw last year with starting pitching, you never can have enough of it.”

■ Two of your offseason losses were Michael Young and Josh Hamilton. Could you talk about Young as a special guy in the clubhouse, and Hamilton, who obviously can dominate?

“Michael had been with our organization the longest. He was a consistent, professional big-league ballplayer for us on and off the field, and he meant a lot to our organization. When you lose somebody like that, it’s a loss in many ways. You don’t look to replace him; you hope that some of the players will take up some of the slack in that area. You just don’t have a franchise player like Michael and not miss him.

“With Josh, the numbers that he produces and what he meant in the middle of our order, you don’t replace a talent like that either. What you have to do with your organization is try to spread it out throughout the lineup and hope that some people step up and take up some of that slack, and maybe you approach your game a little bit differently.

“Maybe (manager) Ron (Washington) is going to run a little more this year and try to manufacture some runs and do some things that maybe give us a different look as an organization and ballclub.”

■ How much of an impact are guys such as Lance Berkman and A.J. Pierzynski going to have on the team?

“Well, you like the fact that they’re successful big-league players. They’re veterans, and they come with experience and so they’re presence will be felt on and off the field. We think with the young talent we have and some veteran players like that of they’re caliber, we think it’s a nice cross section and that they’ll have a positive influence on our ballclub.”

■ Nelson Cruz is in the news for possible use of performance-enhancing drugs. Have you had a chance to talk to him about this situation?

“No, we haven’t. When something like that happens, I think we need to let things settle down. It’s an ongoing investigation by Major League Baseball, so that’s kind of the position we’ve taken.”

■ Is baseball on the right track, as a whole, on getting the PED problem contained?

“I think baseball has done a good job. Two weeks ago at the owner’s meetings, we announced that we’re going to test, for the first time, for human growth hormones, so we’re going to do that this summer. We’re the first sport that’s doing that, so we fell like we’re making progress, and we feel like there will be a lot of other sports following in that light.”

■ What is the No. 1 priority you have for spring training?

“We need to have somebody step up as another starter in our rotation; we have some bullpen spots that we need to define. The No. 1 priority in my opinion is to break camp healthy.”

■ Going into spring training you’ve got Jurickson Profar and Mike Olt as your two young guys. Where do you think they’ll be once the regular season starts?

“You have to see how spring training goes and how they perform and what your needs are. If there’s a place for them to play pretty much on a regular basis, they would be on the ballclub. If not, then I would expect them to be in Triple-A because they’re at the point in their development where you don’t have the luxury of putting them on the bench and being a role player.”

■ What are reasonable expectations for the Rangers this season?

“It’s a little hard for me to predict that because I’m not sure what the rotation’s going to finally end up being, what the bullpen’s going to look like and where our lineup’s going to fall. But my expectations are that we’re going to be competitive and that we’ll compete for the division title.”